Shattering rampant abuse myths

May 12, 2009

By Carey Roberts Imagine a world where ideology takes the place of truth and laws are rooted in dubious factoids from nowhere. That pretty much sums up the fact-challenged, hysteria-mongering domestic violence industry that is propped up by $1 billion of federal money each year. Industry ideologues are loathe to admit the fact, but they truly believe the cause of partner abuse is patriarchal oppression. Not convinced? Just take it on the authority of feminist Gloria Steinem who once made this randy claim, "The patriarchy requires violence or the subliminal threat of violence in order to maintain itself." In her now-famous PBS interview, Steinem expounded on her conspiracy-laced worldview: "It starts with the slippery slope of the supposition [of] gender that sexual relations between men and women are dominant-passive... And then it goes all the way up the scale to beatings, torture, [and] murder." www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/interv/steinem.html That's right, share a few tender moments with your romantic heart-throb and next thing you'll end up a statistic in the newspaper obituaries. Journalist Philip Cook has recently come out with a book titled Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence. Cook probes the patriarchy-equals-violence theory and concludes it has more holes than a rotted-out rain barrel. Take lesbian battering, which experts say is more common than heterosexual abuse. Remember Lindsey Lohan coming to blows with her girlfriend in a London nightclub last November? Recall Jessica Kalish of Florida who was stabbed with a screwdriver 200 times by her former female lover? And Raina L. Johnson who last year was sentenced to 28 years behind bars for the shooting of her ex-girlfriend in Washington, DC? It's pretty loopy to explain away female-on-female brutality by casting aspersions on the loathsome patriarchy, so it's easier to pretend such incidents never happen, I guess. In that same PBS interview, Steinem also made the claim that domestic violence is "the major cause of physical and psychological injury to women." Everyone knows Steinem is an authority in such matters, so everyone assumed she was telling the truth. Except for Phil Cook, who decided to trace the origin of the canard. Back in 1985, advocates Evan Stark and Anne Flitcraft poured through a stack of hospital emergency room records. Without rhyme or reason, they tallied every case of injury as caused by domestic violence, unless the chart specifically said a stranger had caused the harm. When later pressed to explain his unconventional methodology, the best Stark could say was, "maybe domestic violence is the leading cause of injury and maybe it isn't." That's right, and maybe the moon is made of cheese so the Man in the Moon can have something to eat. Or maybe it isn't. But that logic didn't stop former senator Joseph Biden from becoming a True Believer. "The single greatest danger to a woman's health is violence from men. Something is sick in our society," he once admonished. That line of thinking is reflected in the federal Violence Against Women Act that Biden succeeded in passing in 1994. The DV-as-the-leading-cause-of-injury legend soon became a dependable applause line as President Bill Clinton and senators Olympia Snowe and Ron Wyden joined in the sing-along. And sure enough, look at the Security and Financial Security Act that Rep. Roybal-Allard of California introduced just a few months ago. Peruse the bill's findings, and once again you see the lie standing straight and tall: "Violence against women has been reported to be the leading cause of physical injury to women." Once such myths are embedded in the national psyche, they become ferociously difficult to remove. Take a Department of Health and Human Services website that once featured the "Domestic Violence is the leading cause of injury to women" claim. "It took two years, letters from a congressman, and an inquiry from a Senator's office, plus numerous letters, which mostly went unanswered, for an undersecretary at HHS to finally respond that maybe 'the' leading cause was erroneous, but it was 'a' leading cause. The truth, of course, is that is was neither," recounts an exasperated Philip Cook. "Eventually the HHS removed the statement from its Website site but refused to issue a retraction, even after eight years of perpetrating an outrageously false 'health' statement." Curious to know what are the leading causes of injury to women? Here they are: unintentional falls, car accidents, and overexertion. Domestic violence did not even make the list: http://mchb.hrsa.gov/whusa08/hstat/hi/pages/226i.html So relax ladies, everything you've heard about the "epidemic" of domestic violence is mostly hype calculated to stampede you into divorcing your husband and voting for yet another taxpayer-funded, ideologically-charged abuse reduction program. © Carey Roberts

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The real cause of Injury to women rather than the Radical Feminist Propaganda of Domestic Violence.

From: Information on this page can be found in the print version of Women's Health USA 2008. Suggested Citation: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Women's Health USA 2008. Rockville, Maryland:

Injury

Often, injuries can be controlled by either preventing an event (such as a car crash) or lessening its impact. This can occur through education, engineering and design of safety products, enactment and enforcement of policies and laws, economic incentives, and improvements in emergency care. Some examples include the design, oversight, and use of child safety seats and seatbelts, workplace regulations regarding safety practices, and tax incentives for fitting home pools with fences.

In 2006, unintentional falls were the leading cause of nonfatal injury among women of every age group, and rates generally increased with age. Women aged 65 years and older had the highest rate of injury due to unintentional falls (59.7 per 1,000 women), while slightly more than 19 per 1,000 women aged 18–34 and 35–44 years experienced fall-related injuries. Unintentional injuries sustained as motor vehicle occupants were the second leading cause of injury among 18- to 34-year-olds (18.7 per 1,000), while unintentional overexertion was the second leading cause of injury among women aged 35–44 and 45–64 years (13.7 and 9.3 per 1,000, respectively). Among women aged 65 years and older, being unintentionally struck by or against an object was the second leading cause of injury (5.7 per 1,000).

Unintentional and intentional injuries each represented a higher proportion of emergency department (ED) visits for men than women in 2005. Among women and men aged 18 years and older, unintentional injuries accounted for 19.9 and 27.5 percent of ED visits, respectively, while intentional injuries, or assault, represented 1.4 and 2.7 percent of visits, respectively. Among both women and men, unintentional injury accounted for a higher percentage of ED visits among those living in non-metropolitan areas, while adults living in metropolitan areas had a slightly higher percentage of ED visits due to intentional injury.

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Anonymums Feminist Man haters from OZ Surface with an MSM Press Release

Well, well, well, the feminazi group with all the man hating vitriol on the internet is trying to present itself as a voice for mothers to the MSM. I would invite you to visit their sites such as FRNAKED, OZ Pig Pages et al to see who they really are. They are acolytes of the Marilyn French school of radical feminism who want all the rights but not all the responsibilities. They believe they have rightful "ownership" of children and men are incompetent to deal with parenting. They hiss like the poisonous snakes who tempted Eve but now want the MSM to treat them seriously. Read on folks then visit their web sites to see what their real agenda is. They are "Lifeboat Feminists" who want all the equality in the world, but believe they are perpetual victims and when it comes down to the crunch want in the lifeboats of the sinking ship with the children and leave the men to fend for themselves. Equality is not want they want at all, they want the Nanny State to be their substitute Dads (protectors) because they never had an opportunity to have a real relationship with a real father because dads are marginalized by a massive social engineering scheme based on false ideology from feminists of the 70's and 80's. They even have a real human contact not a "Widget" or "Avatar." Welcome to the non-anonymous real world ladies.MJM

False Allegations are a small factor in the Family Courts

Wednesday 13th May 2009 | 11:22 AM

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Even one of the strongest family violence critics admitted that in a majority of child abuse cases had substance in it.

DR Richard A Gardner, the man who coined the term Parent Alienation Syndrome stated, "The vast majority ("probably over 95%") of all sex abuse allegations are valid". Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics (pp. 7, 140).

Like the recent report about St John's Ambulances "Hush Money for sex abuse victims" fathers rights will have us all believe that most mothers and children are liars when it comes to allegations in the Family Court.

This was not true for Cassandra Hasanovic who died at the hands of her ex partner. The Family Court ignored her pleas and ordered her to return resulting in her death. The Founder of the Anonymums Collective Stated, "The falsely accused are among the privileged in the family courts, they can obtain costs and are not required to provide much evidence as the court rules upon the level of substantiation".

In the National Plan to reduce Violence against Women and Their Children it was stated, "The Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006, however, represents a potential obstruction to a just and integrated response to family violence in Australia". Members of Anonymums not only agree to this statement, they understand the grave consequences that surround this lucrative bill.

Even the Prime Minister said, "As a nation, the time has well and truly come to have a national conversation - a public national conversation, not a private one - about how it could still be the case that in 2008 so many Australian women could have experienced violence from their partner... It is my gender - it is our gender - Australian men - that are responsible. And so the question is: what are we going to do about it? ...There are no circumstances in which the threat of violence against women is acceptable. There are no circumstances in which the thought of violence against women is acceptable. That on violence against women, we have simple, clear policy in two words: zero tolerance."

"It's a move in the right direction and will save the government compensation money in the long run" a spokesperson for Anonymums stated.

The Founder of Anonymums added, "When Diana Bryant said "Family Violence is the Core Business of the Family Court", many victims have begun to wonder why such force was imposed upon them in a system that is meant to protect them from such things.

Take "Family Violence" and "Core Business" out of this phrase and it becomes clear what she meant when she said this.

Family Violence Victims held captive by the court and perpetrator means that the protective parent will guarantee a great deal of money.

The message becomes clear, "To protect your children, save your life - We will need the children's home, life savings and anything else you have". Either way, the victim is cornered by a bunch of legal clauses and unless they can produce more than what is required for a homicide, the child or the intimate partner violence victim is at the abusers mercy".

The Australian Human Rights Commission made the Following Statement about False Allegations, "HREOC is well aware of the concerns of some individuals and community organizations that false allegations of family violence are regularly made.

For example, i n its submission to a review of legislation regarding protection orders, the Lone Fathers' Association states that protection orders "are employed as a routine separation procedure" by women to force their husbands out of their homes, without any violence having occurred, "and/or as a vindictive retaliatory act".

HREOC would caution against accepting this contention uncritically. There is no doubt that Family Court proceedings often are accompanied by allegations of domestic violence and the use of protection orders.

However, this may reflect the fact that domestic violence often escalates when couples separate.

Australian data demonstrate that women are as likely to experience violence by previous partners as by current partners and that it is the time around and after separation which is most dangerous for women."

This was in 2005. It's been four years since this was noted and many lives at stake, some are embedded upon gravestones, a remembrance of a time when children were once again seen and not heard. For further information contact: Emily Taylor Writer (888) 203-6750

Globe & Mail ~ Parental alienation cases draining court resources

Bala makes some good points but he takes the feminist side in trying to discredit Parental Alienation Syndrome. Why he thinks it is being discredited, aside from feminist propaganda, is a little perplexing because he offers no justification for it. It passes all legal tests for science in courts in Canada and the USA. That it is controversial is evident but those of us who have seen our children affected in a manner closely described by Gardiner do know he was on to something. When your daughter tells a social worker she doesn't remember her older sister's, who she adored, the pathology is palpable. Nevertheless, Bala isn't spouting the complete pro-feminist line that he sometimes does and that is a step forward. He is right on the money with keeping a single judge - if they can remain unbiased - and professionals can be brought in to seek the truth of any underlying pathologies including the mental health of both parents. But gee - what if we also started out with equal shared parenting as a presumption in law. Some incentives will be lost from the starting gate for the "winner take all" in both the parents attitudes and the parasitic Family Law (FLAW) lawyers.MJM Further to my musings here is a little history of Bala's curious and unscientific assumptions:

from Dutton, Hamel & Corvo- The Gender paradigm and the website of the American Bar Association - Aggression and Violent Behavior 2009

"The Bala and Schuman paper (1999) warns the reader that “while there are legitimate concerns about the possibility that accusing parents or children may be lying (or more likely may be mistaken), those who have abused children usually deny or minimize their abuse” (p.192). The error in logic here is to put the denial (of abuse) before the evidence, so the denial magically becomes “evidence” for what is denied. This is exactly the same witch-hunt procedure that Jaffe et al (2003) use to prime custody assessors about purportedly violent men (see Dutton (2005) for an expanded discussion). Bala and Schuman confuse an abuse allegation with actual abuse, a confusion repeated throughout the ABA website. At an early point in the custody assessment, it is not accurate to equate an accused person with a proven abuser. Also, Bala and Schuman put it “while in some cases of false allegations there may be deliberate effort to lie, more commonly the parent who brings forward the unfounded allegation of abuse following separation has an honest belief in the allegation (p 193-194). In other words, accusing parents are more likely to be mistaken than to lie. This claim is made without any empirical evidence offered to support it.

In fact, in their sample, Bala and Schuman found that only 23% of sexual and physical abuse allegations made by mothers were substantiated by a judicial written decision on the basis of a “balance of probabilities” (the civil standard), the remainder were unproven. We use the notion of “innocent until proven guilty” here, unlike Bala and Schuman. There is, in fact, an unstated premise running through this literature that all allegations are true, some are just difficult or impossible to prove. This is surely a most curious position for lawyers to take".

FAMILY LAW

Study says such cases should be moved out of court system, handled by individual judges

KIRK MAKIN

May 13, 2009

JUSTICE REPORTER

An escalation in parental alienation allegations is draining valuable courtroom resources, a major study of 145 alienation cases between 1989-2008 concludes.

"Access problems and alienation cases - especially those which are more severe - take up a disproportionate amount of judicial time and energy," said the study, conducted by Queen's University law professor Nicholas Bala, a respected family law expert.

"One can ask whether the courts should even be trying to deal with these very challenging cases."

In an interview yesterday, Prof. Bala said that parental alienation cases should be streamlined out of the court system as rapidly as possible and given to individual judges to "case-manage," a system in which a single judge handles a case all the way through the courts.

He said this would allow the judges to learn their cases' nuances and press for resolution.

"The increase in court cases is dramatic, and they do take up a lot of court time," he said. "A family may appear in front of 10 different judges before they get to a trial, and each judge starts afresh. If you are dealing with people who are manipulative, they can drag it out."

"It is important for the justice system to take an early and firm response to alienation cases," his study concluded.

"Alienation cases can change over time from mild to more severe. Early intervention is more likely to be successful."

The study also urged the justice system to enforce access orders more rigorously for the sake of its own credibility.

It said that the relatively lax enforcement of access - an issue that primarily affects fathers - contrasts sharply with zero tolerance policies in domestic abuse cases and enhanced enforcement of child and spousal support orders.

The juxtaposition can convince fathers that the system is biased against them, Prof. Bala said.

"Just as feminists have some very important and valid criticisms of the family justice system, so do fathers' rights advocates," he said.

The study also took issue with the much-publicized concept of Parental Alienation Syndrome, arguing that it is neither a recognized syndrome nor a useful description of what is actually a complicated set of behaviours.

The study said proponents of PAS err in painting all alienation scenarios as negative.

In half of the cases where a judge had declined to make a finding of parental alienation, it said the child was "understandably estranged from the rejected parent due to abuse or poor parenting.

"The 'justifiably estranged' child rejects a parent due to experiences of abuse or neglect, or due to poor parenting that may be the result of drug abuse or mental health issues or a simple lack of warmth as a parent," the study said.

Prof. Bala concluded that the term "parental alienation" and the debate itself have been hijacked by two hopelessly polarized groups, fathers' rights activists and feminists, who each produce a simplistic narrative.

"Men's rights activists are claiming that it is becoming increasingly common for mothers to alienate children from their fathers as a way of seeking revenge for separation, and assert that courts are gender-biased against fathers in dealing with alienation," he said.

"Many feminists dismiss alienation as a claim fabricated by abusive fathers to maintain contact with children who are terrified of them, and control over the lives of their abused former partners."

Prof. Bala said that the notion of parental alienation syndrome, coined in 1987 by U.S. psychiatrist Richard Gardner, is falling steadily into disrepute.

"Although initially influential with mental health professionals and in the courts, Gardner's work was highly controversial," he said in the study.

"It is clear that some children are 'alienated' from their parents, but it does seem not appropriate to refer to this as a 'syndrome.'

Gardner's approach is now generally regarded as overly simplistic and biased against women."